Devils lose sixth straight with 5-2 loss to Lightning

Devils goaltender Johan Hedberg (1) leaves the game as he is replaced by Keith Kinkaid during the second period against the Tampa Bay Lightning Tuesday.

NEWARK – Seeing a glimpse of their potential goaltending future gave Devils’ fans something to cheer about Tuesday night – as did a too-little-too-late comeback attempt.

Everything else from the Devils is almost too ugly to contemplate right now, however, after they dropped their sixth consecutive game, 5-2, to the slumping Tampa Bay Lightning at Prudential Center.

The Lightning built a 4-0 lead and held on to snap a five-game losing streak, chasing struggling Devils goaltender Johan Hedberg 13:13 into the second period. That brought 23-year-old rookie Keith Kinkaid off the bench to make his first NHL appearance.

Kinkaid, who signed with the Devils as an undrafted free agent out of Union College in 2011, stopped 12 of the 13 shots he faced.

Devils coach Pete DeBoer made it clear immediately afterward, however, that Hedberg will start again Thursday night against Buffalo, saying, “We’re going to go back with Heddy.”

With Martin Brodeur still recovering from a back injury – he watched Tuesday night from the team’s suite — Hedberg has started the past six games and lost them all (one in a shootout). Over those six starts, he’s given up 21 goals on 130 shots (.838 save percentage), including three goals on 11 shots Tuesday.

“Sometimes things don’t go your way and you’ve just got to get out of it,” Hedberg said. “Right now it seems like whatever there is that can go wrong it will.”

DeBoer pulled Hedberg after Alexander Killorn scored 13:13 into the second period to increase Tampa Bay’s lead to 3-0.

“I made a change to try to kick-start our team, it’s a tool we’ve used before and the fact that we have five games this week and we need him back in the net on Thursday,” DeBoer said.

DeBoer liked the way Kinkaid handled his first NHL game experience.

“I thought if we stuck the kid in there the guys would maybe get a heightened sense of desperation and he made a couple of big saves there,” DeBoer said.

Kinkaid admitted he was a bit nervous at first. He made his first NHL save on defenseman Sami Salo’s right-point shot that hit him in the left shoulder with 1:33 left in the second period.

“Once I got in, I had to settle down a little bit with deep breaths and after I got in that first save, I don’t even think I saw it,” Kinkaid said. “The ref comes up to me and said, ‘Good start, bud.’ That was nice of him and after that I kind of settled down after the second intermission.”

The Farmingville, N.Y., native’s biggest moment came when Steven Stamkos streaked in against him on a breakaway 1:08 into the third period and he outwaited the NHL’s leading goal-scorer to make a left-pad save.

Kinkaid couldn’t cover up all his teammate’s’ mistakes, though. Nate Thompson was left alone in the slot to rip a feed from Cory Conacher over Kinkaid’s left shoulder 8:36 into the third for his second goal of the game, making it 4-0.

The Devils made things interesting with Adam Henrique’s short-handed goal with 6:16 remaining and Patrik Elias’ power-play tally with 4:45 left to cut it to 4-2, but B.J. Crombeem’s empty-net goal with 1:20 left sealed it for Tampa Bay.

“We’ve got to build off the last four minutes,” DeBoer said. “This is our adversity. Every team faces it at different points in the year. This is ours. You hope that you get to the bottom here, so you can start climbing up. I’m hoping this is rock bottom and we can start getting off the mat here and getting up and on to bigger and better things.”

The Devils were in first place in the Eastern Conference after beginning the season 8-1-3. They’ve gone just 2-7-2 since then to drop into seventh place in the conference, one point ahead of the eighth-place Rangers and two ahead of the ninth-place Flyers.

“These moments are what define a team and it’s how we’re going to respond,” Devils captain Bryce Salvador said. “Our start gave us a little leeway, but we’re at the point where as a team we’ve got to come out and we’ve got to get points.”